The third mode is, the claim that the depravity of man’s mind consists in a _habit of sinning_. On this view, God created man’s mind aright, in all respects, in a preëxistent state. In this normal condition of mind, every propensity was toward not only _good_, but to the _best_ good, while there was sufficient _knowledge_ of right created also, to save from all mistakes of judgment as to what is best and right. In this perfect state _some_ minds began to sin, and thus formed a habit of sinning, and were then sent into this world to be reformed. Here it is plain, that the depravity intended is depravity of construction. For _habit_, as men use the term, expresses the fact that repetition in the use of any faculty _increases its power_. It is a change in the constitutional _construction_ of mind induced by use. For example, a child has little constitutional power of mind to reason or to calculate figures. By use, this deficiency of construction is modified. _Habit_, then, modifies the constitutional organization of mind. This mode of describing the depravity of mind teaches the misconstruction of constitutional organization as much as all the others, but it furnishes another mode by which it was induced, so as to make man the author in a way that is comprehensible, and not absurd.(16) The fourth mode is the claim that the depravity of the human mind consists in the _disparities, or varieties, of constitutional organization_. It has been shown that such disparities, as parts of a vast system in which the best good of the whole is the best good of each part, are indispensable to the perfect construction of mind in relation to that system. But the depravity claimed is, that which is common to _every_ mind, and is so total that not a single mind, however highly endowed, ever, even in one case, acts virtuously till regenerated. Thus the best in mental construction are as totally depraved as the worst. At the same time, it is clear that it is constitutional malformation that is taught, and nothing else. The fifth mode of describing the depravity of mind is that it consists in the _deprivation_ of God’s Spirit. The result of this deprivation is thus described by Dr. Hodge, of the Princeton Calvinist school of divines: “In consequence of this withdrawal we begin to exist in moral darkness, _destitute of a disposition_ to delight in God.” Arminius, the chief theologian of the Methodists, describes it thus: “The will of man, with respect to the _true good_, is not only wounded, bruised, inferior, crooked and attenuated, but is likewise captivated, destroyed and lost; and has _no powers whatever_, except such as are excited by grace.”